Has anyone from NYSportsJournalists.com ever met a woman and got her phone number during the course of a subway ride? Does this happen?

I never have, but it's almost a lifelong dream -- even if I don't ever call her, I just want to know I have pulled it off at least once. It's difficult. Short window of opportunity, you have no idea when she might get off and it is an unnatural setting to be hitting on women. It sort of, almost came up for me last week. A beautiful woman was sitting next to me on the subway during the middle of the day reading something. All of a sudden she blurted out, "Oh shit. I missed my stop." So I said something about how what she was reading must be really good. And that led to a smile and a three-minute conversation... before she got off at the next stop to switch back to the uptown train. She gave me a smile and a "nice to meet you," and that was that.

It's funny that someone posted this story, because I had the thought at the time, "Well, what more can you do in that situation?"

Aside from my social anxiety issues and my hypersensitivity to doing anything that seems stalkerish, I was on the subway because I was on my way to a lunch meeting with someone. But the suggestion is legit if you are willing to risk the awkwardness of the interaction.

You know, I was going to add the caveat of not having the time to jump back on another train but decided against it for some reason.

And I shouldn't criticize, I have no idea how she said "Nice to meet you." If she lingered, added a "well" at the beginning, looked back when she got off, then I would have made my friend wait. If she was quick with her goodbye and disappeared from the train even quicker, then no big loss. It was probably somewhere in between, though, which is far worse. That leaves you hanging and wondering.

Not to totally take over the thread. But there was nothing special about the nice to meet you. I might have gotten a flirtatious smile, but sometimes I don't read these things well. And the meeting wasn't with a friend. It was business, and it was fairly important. Either way, I still wouldn't have gotten off. Split second decision, and I wouldn't have had the balls.